Disrupting Peace

How can we make the world a more peaceful place for children? In this episode, we look at the impact that experiencing violence has on children…sometimes before they - or their parents - are even born. We’ll learn about how war impacts DNA over generations, explore resilience, and look at global and personal first steps that we can take to make things better for kids around the world.Catherine Panter-Brick is a Professor of Anthropology, Health, and Global Affairs at Yale University, and she has published nearly 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications on global health and the social sciences. Her research focuses on children around the world in contexts of homelessness, displacement, and war. You can read the study Catherine referred to, “Epigenetic signatures of intergenerational exposure to violence in three generations of Syrian refugees." Find out more about Catherine’s work here. Susan Bissell is a Visiting Scholar and Senior Fellow at the FXB Centre for Human Rights, T. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University. Of Canadian origin, and now a dual citizen of Canada and the USA, Susan obtained her first two degrees from the University of Toronto, and her PhD in Public Health and Medical Anthropology from the University of Melbourne. A staunch advocate for the rights, safety, security, and protection of the world’s children, Susan’s association with the United Nations Children’s Fund spanned a thirty-year period. She served as UNICEF’s global lead on Child Protection, and was the founding director of the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children. Susan’s postings with UNICEF, which encompassed Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India, the research centre in Florence Italy, and finally New York, infuse her work and publishing with a truly global perspective.  Her TedX at Amherst, the Weissberg Chair Lecture, and Susan’s numerous media engagements make her a leading voice for children everywhere. Find out more about Susan’s work here.Disrupting Peace is a production of The World Peace Foundation. The show is produced by Bridget Conley and Emily Shaw. Engineering by Jacob Winik and Aja Simpson. Marketing and Social media by Emily Ruhm. Show artwork by Simon Fung. Special thanks to Jeremy Helton, Lisa Avery, B. Arneson, and Alex de Waal, and the team from the Tufts Digital Design Studio, including Kimberly Lynn Forero-Arnias, and Miles Donovan.Find out more about the World Peace Foundation at worldpeacefoundation.org. Follow us on Bluesky at worldpeacefdtn.bsky.social, and on Instagram at @worldpeacefdtn.

How can someone help their neighbors and community when a war breaks out? Today we’re seeing what we can learn from mutual aid efforts in Sudan.Omar al-Bashir ruled Sudan for three brutal decades, from 1989 until he was overthrown by a peaceful revolution in 2019. In 2023, a civil war broke out between two warring parties, the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, and the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. Emergency Response Rooms - not to be confused with hospital emergency rooms in the west - are temporary mutual aid networks that have emerged to provide resources critical to the survival of everyday Sudanese people.Omima Jabal is a leader in the ERRs - emergency response rooms - in Sudan’s capital of Khartoum. She also initiated the 'Infinitive of Teaching English Language' program, which allowed around 500 individuals to study English despite living in a warzone. Learn more about Omima’s work here: https://khartoumerr.orgAlex de Waal is executive director of the World Peace Foundation, and among the world’s leading experts on the Horn of Africa – which includes Sudan. From 2005-2006, he worked with the African Union mediation team for Darfur, and from 2009-2011, he served as senior adviser to the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel for Sudan. Learn more about Alex’s work here: https://worldpeacefoundation.org/team-member/alex-de-waalDisrupting Peace is a production of The World Peace Foundation. The show is produced by Bridget Conley and Emily Shaw. Engineering by Jacob Winik and Aja Simpson. Marketing and Social media by Emily Ruhm. Show artwork by Simon Fung.Special thanks to Jeremy Helton, Lisa Avery, B. Arneson, and Alex de Waal, and the team from the Tufts Digital Design Studio, including Kimberly Lynn Forero-Arnias and Miles Donovan.Find out more about the World Peace Foundation at worldpeacefoundation.org. Follow us on Bluesky at worldpeacefdtn.bsky.social, and on Instagram at @worldpeacefdtn.

In Season 3 of Disrupting Peace, we are looking around the world – and here in the US – to explore the very first steps everyday people can take towards peace. We often think of this as something that belongs to policymakers and leaders of armed factions – not to the average person. But this season, we’re diving into the individual efforts we can take to make this world more peaceful.Season 3 launches on September 9th.Disrupting Peace is a production of The World Peace Foundation. Find out more at worldpeacefoundation.org.

This week we’re bringing back our very first episode, We Thought We Solved World Peace, from September 2024.When host Bridget Conley was a college student in the 90s, there was this air of optimism. It might sound crazy to say now, but she and her colleagues honestly believed they had solved world peace. In this first episode of Disrupting Peace, Bridget speaks with Yale law professor Sam Moyn and South African activist Mamello about what went wrong in the 90s, and what it would take to turn things around by 2050. Sam Moyn is Professor of Law and History at Yale Law School, and co-host of “Digging a Hole: the legal theory podcast.” He’s written several books that complicate key tenets of peacebuilding, including human rights, liberalism, economic equality, and the laws of war. Follow Sam Moyn on X at @samuelmoyn.Mamello is head of campaigns at the South Africa-based organization, Open Secrets. Open Secrets holds the profiteers of economic crime, human rights abuses, and war to account. She was one year old when Nelson Mandela was elected president in 1994, and grew up amidst massive political change in South Africa. Find out more about Mamello and Open Secrets at opensecrets.org.za. Disrupting Peace is a production of the World Peace Foundation. The show is produced by Bridget Conley and Emily Shaw. Engineering by Jacob Winik and Aja Simpson. Marketing and Social media by Emily Ruhm. Show artwork by Simon Fung. Special thanks to Jeremy Helton, my colleagues, Lisa Avery, B. Arneson, and Alex de Waal, and the team from the Tufts Digital Design Studio, including Kimberly Lynn Forero-Arnias, and Miles Donovan.Find out more about the World Peace Foundation at worldpeacefoundation.org. Follow us on Bluesky at worldpeacefdtn.bsky.social, and on Instagram at @worldpeacefdtn.

To close out Season 2, we’re talking about the long-term impacts of electing a right-wing populist to office. Silvio Berlusconi transformed Italian government and society, beginning when he was first elected Prime Minister in 1994. In this episode, we’ll explore how Berlusconi legitimized the far-right (even though he himself was a center right politician), why people repeatedly vote for leaders that don’t make their lives better, and how Italian activists have still achieved some progressive victories. Fabi Fugazza is the Co-Executive Director and Legal Expert at the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights. She is (also) a lawyer with extensive experience in human rights law. Follow her on Instagram @fabi.fugazza. Luisa Chiodi holds a PhD in Social and Political Science, and has been the director of think tank and online newspaper OBC Transeuropa since 2006. Follow her on Instagram @luisachiodi. Disrupting Peace is a production of The World Peace Foundation. The show is produced by Bridget Conley and Emily Shaw. Engineering by Jacob Winik and Aja Simpson. Marketing and Social media by Emily Ruhm. Show artwork by Simon Fung. Special thanks to Jeremy Helton, my colleagues, Lisa Avery, B. Arneson, and Alex de Waal, and the team from the Tufts Digital Design Studio, including Kimberly Lynn Forero-Arnias, and Miles Donovan. Find out more about the World Peace Foundation at worldpeacefoundation.org. Follow us on Bluesky at worldpeacefdtn.bsky.social, and on Instagram at @worldpeacefdtn.

What's it like to lead without a military? In this episode, we focus on Costa Rica, and explore what happens when a country abolishes its military, Costa Rica’s approach to domestic security, and the ways that having a military can increase violence and instability in a country…Plus we’ll have our first former president on the show! Carlos Alvarado Quesada served as President of Costa Rica from 2018 to 2022. While president, he focused on combating climate change, defending human rights, democracy, and multilateralism, which is when countries cooperate to solve problems. Carlos currently teaches graduate courses on leadership at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, where the World Peace Foundation is based. Follow Carlos on Instagram @carlosalvq.Jorge Vargas is Director of the State of the Nation Program in Costa Rica. As an academic researcher, he focuses on state reform and democracy in Central America. Find out more about Jorge’s work at estadonacion.or.cr.The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) study we referenced can be found at www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2024-04/2404_fs_milex_2023.pdfCheck out “The Arms Trade - Let’s Talk About Big Weapons” and “AI & Autonomous Weapons Today” from Season 1 for more about militarization.Disrupting Peace is a production of the World Peace Foundation. The show is produced by Bridget Conley and Emily Shaw. Engineering by Jacob Winik and Aja Simpson. Marketing and Social media by Emily Ruhm. Show artwork by Simon Fung. Special thanks to Jeremy Helton, Lisa Avery, B. Arneson, and Alex de Waal, and the team from the Tufts Digital Design Studio, including Kimberly Lynn Forero-Arnias, and Miles Donovan.Find out more about the World Peace Foundation at worldpeacefoundation.org. Follow us on Bluesky at worldpeacefdtn.bsky.social, and on Instagram @worldpeacefdtn.

Sustaining a democracy often looks mundane. It includes managing different stakeholders, crafting policy, debating nuances and compromising. Ending a democracy can be dramatic: and it almost happened on December 3, 2024 when the president of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, attempted to declare martial law during a televised address. In this episode, we’ll hear a first-hand account of what happened on the ground that night, and discuss how a political opposition can successfully overturn a president’s power grab.   Jiho Cha is a member of the South Korean Parliament, in the opposition, Democratic Party. By training he is a physician, and has worked in global health and humanitarian affairs. Follow Jiho on Instagram @chajiho_oh and on Linkedin.  Myunghee Lee is an expert on authoritarian politics, democratization, protest and foreign policy in East Asia. She is an Assistant Professor of political science at Michigan State University. Find out more about her work at https://jmc.msu.edu/faculty-staff/directory/Lee.html Disrupting Peace is a production of The World Peace Foundation. The show is produced by Bridget Conley and Emily Shaw. Engineering by Jacob Winik and Aja Simpson. Marketing and Social media by Emily Ruhm. Show artwork by Simon Fung.   Special thanks to Jeremy Helton, Lisa Avery, B. Arneson, and Alex de Waal, and the team from the Tufts Digital Design Studio, including Kimberly Lynn Forero-Arnias, and Miles Donovan. Find out more about the World Peace Foundation at worldpeacefoundation.org. Follow us on Bluesky at worldpeacefdtn.bsky.social, and on Instagram @worldpeacefdtn.